Laptops must strike a delicate balance between performance, size, weight, power consumption, and heat dissipation. Some manufacturers do a good job, while others leave much to be desired, but none can escape certain failures. The most common problems in a cooling system usually point to the fan, thermal paste, or pads, but Graham from the Adamant IT channel reminds us with his latest video that there is another element to consider: the heat pipe.
When we receive a computer with temperature spikes, some common causes immediately come to mind: the thermal paste needs to be "refreshed" every once in a while (by the way, I have to do that on my own machine), fans stop spinning, pads deteriorate, and of course, the combination of dust, hair, and other debris can block any air intake. We also shouldn't forget pump problems and the natural loss of liquid if the computer uses watercooling, but Graham teaches us an additional failure, a very rare possibility that often goes unnoticed: the heat pipe, technically a "two-phase thermosiphon tube", much better known by its English expression, heat pipe.
Heat Pipe Failure in a Laptop Heatsink
A quick recap: the heat pipe combines convection with phase change to transfer and dissipate heat. In other words, the liquid inside alternates between evaporation and condensation, and with the help of a radiator/fan combo at one end (or just the radiator if the setup is fanless), excess heat is expelled from the system.
Now, a heat pipe has no mechanical parts, but it can stop working under certain conditions, such as a leak of the liquid inside (due to a crack or a puncture in the metal), or an obstruction that the user might not necessarily detect with their eyes. Graham's demonstration begins with a stress test on a Dell laptop, with the processor entering a throttling cycle to avoid being cooked above 100 degrees.
The fan works and the thermal paste change is recent, but there are no bumps or external damage to the radiator. With the help of a thermal camera, Graham confirms that there is an obstruction beyond the bend of the heat pipe, concentrating heat in the first section. The second test shows us a correctly functioning cooler: heat is distributed across the entire heat pipe, and we can also observe its saturation when he disconnects the fan for a moment.
Now, that raises a question: What can we do when we don't have a thermal camera? Well, the classic "touch and burn" works very well. I admit that in more than 25 years, I've never encountered this failure, but Graham has run into it twice in less than six months. In short, if a laptop registers excess temperature for no apparent reason, it's worth checking the heat pipe.
